Bryce

I spat the last of the incantation through a mouthful of blood, and felt the burning pain fade into a deep, throbbing drain as the concealment spell settled into place around the ship.

Thea ran to my side to stop me from collapsing, and Sora finally released Samira. The abrupt end to her shouting only served to further punctuate the silence that followed.

My labored breathing was the only sound in the room and I could feel the gaze passing through us, as it was no longer concentrating on the ship. It was still painfully visceral, but the preternatural anxious panic that was fraying at the edges of my sanity felt a bit more bearable.

I looked towards Sora with trembling wide eyes and, after a few false starts, spoke in a low whisper.

“M-m-ove t-the s-ship.”

Sora gave a panicked nod in response, but it felt like an eternity before I could finally feel us moving. It would only take a few minutes for us to pass out of the titan’s line of sight, but I kept having to remind myself that it would soon be over while my knuckles went white from gripping the legs of my pants.

Eventually, the oppressive feeling of the gaze disappeared, and the panic subsided enough for me to look around at the frightened faces of the other crew members.

“Is everybody okay?” I asked, and received a series of reluctant nods in response.

“What is that thing?” Thea was pointing up towards the still translucent ceiling at the tangled mass of spiked tentacles that branched and weaved in every direction. They were surrounding the ship as far as the eye could see.

“That's the nest of an aether leviathan. The eyes are there to lure in prey, and the spikes, those are to ward off larger predators.” Sora was the first one to answer, and they were cringing at their own explanation.

“Right, okay, that’s fine and all, but larger predators?” Thea complained. “It’s just that, Sora, you mentioned larger predators, and I’m not sure that we should be in a place where something needs massive tentacles, covered in freaky eyeballs, and massive spikes to protect itself against LARGER FUCKING PREDATORS.”

I flinched as she yelled the last few words next to my ear and she mouthed an apology to me.

Yelling aside, I didn’t disagree with Thea. The eyes were nearly twice the size of our ship and the spikes were easily a kilometer long. While I had done little research on the Aether, the idea of ‘larger predators’ made me think that ignorance might actually be bliss in this situation.

“How much danger are we actually in right now, Sora?” I asked.

Samira answered in place of Sora. “We are in yes danger. All of the danger. Aether leviathan nests are what navigators use when they joke about killing themselves and their entire crew.” She switched to an exaggerated, deep voice before continuing her tirade. “Oh, I’ll just fly us into a leviathan nest and kill us all or how about I just fly us into the nest of an aether leviathan and see how you like it or even-”

Sora grappled with their sister and covered her mouth again before responding themselves.

“It’s definitely not good, but under normal circumstances, I would have expected us to be dead already.” They explained. “Our sudden appearance combined with whatever spell you just cast must have been enough to either avoid detection or confuse it, because it hasn’t attacked us yet.”

“It was a concealment spell that’s anchored around the ship.” I did some mental calculations, but quickly realized there were still too many missing pieces. “How long will it take for us to get out of here, and do you know how far we are from Drassun?”

Sora frowned and thought for a moment while still holding a hand over Samira’s mouth. She looked up at them, making no move to fight back.

“We can push .25C, maybe .3, if we run hot. That would put us outside the nest in three or four hours.” Sora said. “We actually got pretty lucky with the location. Drassun is only about three days out at normal speeds.”

Thirty percent light speed was insanely fast and it would still take up to four hours for us to get out of the nest. I hadn’t fully appreciated the size of it before, and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain the concealment spell for four hours.

Samira used both of her hands to free her mouth and chimed in with a possible solution. “If I overwork the aether converter and redirect a few systems, we could probably push that to nearly 40% light, but it would get pretty cold in here. Plus, we would be running with minimal shields and no weapons.”

No shields and no weapons wouldn’t be great, but it would cut about an hour off from our escape, which sounded damn appealing right about now. I shifted my weight off of Thea to stand on my own, which mostly succeeded, but my stumble earned me a few concerned looks from the others.

“How long would it take to get the weapons and shields back in an emergency?” I asked Samira.

“We would need to outrun any emergencies,” Samira shook her head. “Rerouting will only take me a few minutes, but the lines will have to discharge slowly before we can use them again and doing that safely will take hours. Otherwise, we risk detonating our entire arsenal or frying ourselves with the shields.”

Okay, so we could’t get into any firefights. That would probably be for the best. I got the feeling that if there was anything alive inside the nest that could see past my concealment spell, our shields and weapons wouldn’t help us all that much, anyway.

I couldn’t think of a better alternative and if we only had the one option, we might as well throw everything into it.

“Okay, do it.” I said.

Samira nodded before leaping over the back of the couch.

I turned to Sora and started to ask them something, but the sudden movement combined with a poorly timed wave of pain caused a bout of dizziness and my vision faded momentarily.

Thankfully, Thea was still holding onto me, but it didn’t inspire confidence at our chances.

“Are you going to be okay, captain?” Samira asked.

She had stopped just behind the couches and was giving me a worried look.

I had the same question. My meridians still hadn’t recovered enough for me to cast a spell like that, and I was afraid that maintaining it for three hours was going to have lasting consequences.

“I’ll be fine. My nanites will heal the physical damage, and I only have to maintain the spell until we get out of the nest.” I answered with what I thought was a reassuring smile, but she didn’t seem convinced.

“Right, well, I’ll have to shut down the engines for a moment so you might feel a jolt, but it’s nothing complicated, so it won’t take very long.” She reluctantly turned away before sprinting towards the engineering deck.

“Bryce, I don’t need Thea’s lie detecting super power to know that was bullshit. Don’t think that I didn’t notice you specify physical damage, which means even if your nanites could somehow undo whatever is happening without help, there’s more that they can’t heal.” Sora spoke in a hushed tone, presumably so that Samira wouldn’t hear.

I started hobbling back to the couch and Thea helped me sit. Which allowed me to speak with less strain, but now Sora looked even less convinced.

“I’ll have to be fine, because if I allow the spell to drop, then we’ll all die.” It took an effort, but I lost some of the venom in my voice before continuing. “I appreciate your concern, Sora, but right now, our options are limited. If you’re worried about me, then try to find a faster route out of the nest. If you can’t do that, then bring me some nano-boosters from medical.”

Sora shifted their weight and looked to Thea for an answer, which irritated me. There wasn’t a good answer here, and the longer we waited around for one to just appear, the longer I had to maintain the concealment spell. Each passing moment meant there was more of a chance that I wouldn’t be able to undo the damage.

“I would just do what she says here, Sora.” Thea said. “She’s probably right and I think Bryce ordering people around while covered in her own blood is the new normal.”

Thea’s comment confused me until I wiped at my face and my hand came away with a streak of dark blood. I probably seemed like a madwoman. It’s no wonder Sora and Samira were so concerned.

“I, uh, didn’t realize.” The look on my face must have been pretty pathetic because Sora gave me a sweet pitying smile before carefully walking around the couches towards medical.

“I’ll get the boosters, but Thea, try to convince the captain to eat something, otherwise you’ll be the one cleaning up the mess after she pukes her guts out.”